President Trump’s current move to recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan, which laughs off the decree of international law, is a dangerous precedent for the future of international law based order. “There is a very important principle in international life,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week at the Golan signing ceremony at the White House in Washington DC. “When you start wars of aggression, you lose territory, do not come and claim it afterwards. It belongs to us.” Netanyahu’s stance that, since these territories were occupied during a defensive war, it is legally permissible to maintain control over them, is nothing but a self-concocted argument which upholds no legal validity. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who addressed the meeting in Tunis, said any resolution to the Syrian conflict must guarantee the territorial integrity of Syria “including the occupied Golan Heights”. Veritably, the big game of this era is being played on the global chessboard where a new geopolitical alliance between Washington and Tel Aviv is aimed at redefining the old Mideastern boundaries in order to visualize the dream of the Greater Israel conceived by the Israeli neocons. Undoubtedly, US’ political adventurism over Golan makes the future of the Mideast peace totally unpredictable and bleak. It is not only Syria that is unsecure but also the whole region of the West Bank including the Gaza Strip. The Washington move is a reflection on Trump-Netanyahu disdain for international law backed by their political collaboration over Israel’s quest for territorial expansion. The strong responses have come from Russia, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, the GCC, the Arab League, the OIC, the EU states- Franc and Germany. By signing this order, President Trump has ended a legacy about half a century of US foreign policy by walking away from the post-second world war international consensus on the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights extend over an area of 1,860 square kilometers, affiliated by Mount Hermon in the north, the Yarmouk River in the south, the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee in the west, Wadi Ruqqad in the east, and the Hauran region in the southeast. Clearly, US foreign policy has reached a historic low point by unjustifiably legitimizing the illegal occupation of territories belonging to another sovereign country. Golan’s status cannot be changed via Trump’s unilateral move The said move is US’ ominous departure from the very fundamental principles that were agreed in the Oslo Accords in 1992-1993. Moreover, article 3 of the 1907 Hague Convention (IV) provides: “A belligerent Party which violates the provisions of the [1907 Hague Regulations] shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “clear that the status of Golan has not changed,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said after U.S. President Donald Trump recognized the Golan Heights as Israeli territory. “The U.N.’s policy on Golan is reflected in the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and that policy has not changed,” Dujarric said. Israel seized the strategic land from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war. Khemaies Jhinaoui, Tunisia’s foreign minister, who delivered the 30th Arab League summit’s final statement, reiterating the centrality of the Palestinian cause, he said, ”Arab leaders were committed to resolving the conflict based on the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, which offered to recognise Israel in return for a full withdrawal from lands occupied in the 1967 war, including the Golan Heights, occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank”. Notably, the Golan Heights was officially annexed by Israel in 1981. Put historically, the Syrian Golan was the de jure part of the French post-World War I mandate – having no endorsement by the Balfour Declaration (which is yet regarded as a devious British blue print for the creation of an Israeli state). The Trump move seeks recognition of Israeli sovereignty to an area which remains beyond the domains of both the Balfour and the UN partition plan for Palestine in the 1948-49. Under international law, the very acquisition of sovereignty over a territory by occupation is regarded as ultra vires (a clear legal understanding that remains in effect since World War II). Clearly, an act of occupation does not vest the occupier sovereignty over the occupied territory (gained via an offensive or defensive war). Since 1967, Israel has been refusing to implement U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), which press for the complete withdrawal from all the Arab territories occupied in 1967 — including the Occupied Syrian Golan — as well as Security Council Resolution 479 (1981), which confirmed the illegality of Israel ‘s annexation of the Golan. It is estimated that over the last 35 years, seven resolutions per year have been tabled in the August House of the United Nations. The United Nations Displacement Observer Force (UNDOF) has been constantly stationed in the area since 1974. For years, Israel’s aim has been not only to occupy the Syrian Golan but to also rewrite its ancient cultural heritage and geopolitical atmosphere. Yet Washington’s current policy posture on the Golan Heights shows that the US unilaterally tries to dogmatize a rules-based world order, which is the only hope of waging our struggle for peace and human rights, particularly the UN’s credo to prevent the plight of the deprived communities. Obviously, Trump’s controversial decision to shift the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in November, 2017 has already created resentment in the Arab-Palestinian community and now this move seems to have added an injury to the Palestinians’ wounds. Make no mistake, a truncated or moth-eaten Palestinian state will never be acceptable to the Palestinians. “If national borders should be changed it must be done through peaceful means between all those involved,” said the official of the German Foreign Ministry. Clearly, US foreign policy has reached a historic low point by unjustifiably legitimizing the illegal occupation of territories belonging to another sovereign country. Golan’s status cannot be changed via Trump’s unilateral move. Syria is justified in retaking the Golan from Israel. The writer is an independent ‘IR’ researcher and international law analyst based in Pakistan